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As we travel throughout Mesopotamia and meet the few pastors that remain in this country, the first concern that they share with us is the Christian exodus that is taking place. The Christian population in Iraq has dropped from 1.5 million to less than 200 000 in the last 10 years. Most of that number are traditional Catholics with a small percentage of that born-again believers. The presence of salt and light is leaving the country. Even pastors have left! The main reason this is happening is because of the rise of the violence, terrorism, bloodshed and also corruption that is taking place. Iraq has ranked #4 of the most persecution in the world. Iraq has also ranked #4 of the most corruption in the world. Is there hope for such a dark country that is gripped and dominated by fear and corruption? Yes! We believe Revival is coming to the Middle East! We believe the there is a new generation of believers and disciples of Jesus that is coming like that of which it has experienced during the days of the early church. They will not be Christians born into traditional Christian families like it has been, but they will come from a Muslim background that will radically turn to Jesus because of the preaching and the demonstration of the gospel that they will witness before their eyes....

‘For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power’ 1 Corinthians 4:20. ‘For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake’ 1 Thessalonians 1:5. ‘And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God’ 1 Corinthians 2:4-5. This is normal Christianity! As sons of God we owe this world demonstrations of God’s power. Anything less than this we are presenting another religion to this lost and hurting world. Sadly a lot of Christians and ministers present God as being a big talker. There is a lot of preaching, but little demonstration. It should be that there is a lot of demonstration accompanied with the preaching of the word. Jesus Christ is our model As Christ’ ambassadors we are to follow His example: ‘how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him’ Acts 10:38. ‘And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give’ Matthew 10:7. That is preaching with a lot of demonstration. These signs and wonders are proof of God’s love to those who have been made captive by the trickery of the devil. ‘But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us’ Romans 5:8. God passionately longs to demonstrate Himself through our lives because it is His nature to do so. Jesus Christ continually demonstrated love and power because that is who God is. God wants to demonstrate Himself more than we can imagine, but He chose His body (the church) to have this great privilege and great responsibility to demonstrate who God is (the fullness of God) to the world. I am referring to demonstrating God’s character, purity, holiness, love, compassion, humility, obedience, healings, miracles, signs and wonders. God needs physical bodies to work through, that is why He chose His sons to be His living temples. ‘… as Christ is, so are we in this world’ 1 John 4:17. ‘to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord’ Ephesians 3:10-11. Jesus Christ handed the baton to us to continue His work that He had started on this earth. We go to impact the world on His behalf. He is here, He lives in us, He has never changed, He is the same today! The purpose of Jesus being alive in us is for us to continue His life today. And that involves healing the sick, healing the broken hearted, raising the dead, setting the captives free, and winning the...

One very important condition Jesus requires if we desire to follow Him is “Deny Yourself”. “Self” must be nailed to the cross together with its passions and desires. This is true freedom! Freedom to do His will! Recognizing that Christ is Lord and He is a loving Master, it makes all the sense that our life is not our own, we have been purchased with a price. God looks for fully surrendered sons and daughters living for Him. William Booth (Founder of the Salvation Army) shared his secret to his success: “God has had all that there was of me. There have been men with greater brains than I, even with greater opportunities, but from the day I got the poor of London on my heart and caught a vision of what Jesus Christ could do with me and them, on that day I made up my mind that God should have all of William Booth there was. And if there is anything of power in the Salvation Army, it is because God has had all the adoration of my heart, all the power of my will, and all the influence of my...

“The Fire on the Altar shall be kept on burning. It shall never go out!” (Leviticus 6:13) God’s message to His body is very clear to be a “House Of Prayer” for the Nations. We believe this is to be individually and corporately. God always has and still is looking for His people to “stand in the gap” (Ezekiel 22:30) on behalf of a spiritually lost world. As we look at Jesus Christ and His promises in His Word with unveiled faces, both expectancy rises in our heart and also a sense of responsibility to seek Him for our generation. Knowing God’s heart He is more eager to answer prayers than many believers are willing to ask. “Heaven is full of answers to prayers for which no one ever bothered to ask.” Billy Graham God spoke: Vision for Mesopotamia This was one of the emphasis of the vision we received from the Lord before we moved to Mesopotamia. The HUB in the vision of the wheel (Ezekiel 1) is a House of Prayer and an Equipping and Training Ministry Center. We strongly believe that Revival in the Middle East is imminent. God’s way revealed in the Scriptures and Church History We see this model from the time of David in the Old Testament as he appointed prophetic singers and musicians to minister before the Lord day and night to make petition, to give thanks and to praise the Lord (1 Chronicles 16:4). This resulted in spiritual breakthroughs, deliverances, and military victories. Throughout church history others followed similar patterns. In the 18th Century the Moravians after experiencing “a day of outpourings of the Holy Spirit” covenanted to pray “hourly intercessions” every hour around the clock. This prayer meeting would go non-stop for more than one hundred years. From that Prayer Room came a missionary zeal that give birth to the first Protestant Missions Movement. In 1973 the Prayer Mountain was established in South Korea by Pastor David Yonggi Cho. This expanded to become both the largest church in the world and also South Korea send out more missionaries than any country in the world. When we look through church history we see similar occurring results of focused prayer movements – Genuine Revival and Missions movements. Model for new disciples Our desire is not only to see a mighty spiritual impact in the Middle East, but we also want to model this to new believers that God brings to us. We know that we can only reproduce of our own kind. “The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you.” (Philippians 4:9). We want to reproduce this in the people we disciple that men and women of God are people of...

Jesus sent the church on a mission – to continue what He started on the earth. (Matthew 28:18-20; Matthew 24:14; Luke 10:1-3) Prayer are Preaching go hand in hand to truly fulfill the Great Commission. The effectiveness of the mission is the result of the prayer focus. The Prayer emphasis is what empowers the mission. How the Mission Starts A real vision and heart to be missional Christians is birthed from a place of intimacy with Jesus Christ. “Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted, and they came to him. He appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons.” Mark 3:13-15 In a place of being with Him is where He shares His heart with us. That is where we are empowered for the mission, and that is where we get sent out. Ongoing prayer and intercession is what keeps the mission going and gives us the power to be His witnesses. In Exodus 17:8-15 God gave victory to the Israelites as long as Moses help up His hands with the staff of God. Whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites (enemies) were winning. Moses’s hands held up is a picture of his dependence on God. Israel’s strength and victory depended on their faith in God. Our only hope of victory comes from relying on God. The early church When the early church faced obstacles of persecution, they raised their voice to God (Acts 4:24) showing their dependency on God to give them the boldness and power they need to fulfill the mission that was entrusted to them. The apostle Paul also asked the churches to pray for him that he may fearlessly preach the mystery of the gospel. (Ephesians 6:19-20). Paul asked the Colossians to pray for open doors for the Message (Colossians 4:2-3). Many others throughout church history have seen amazing results when they followed this example. Charles Finney is know mighty Revivals in his ministry. Look at the secret. “On one occasion when I got to town to start a revival a lady contacted me who ran a boarding house. She said, ‘Brother Finney, do you know a Father Nash? He and two other men have been at my boarding house for the last three days, but they haven’t eaten a bite of food. I opened the door and peeped in at them because I could hear them groaning, and I saw them down on their faces. They have been this way for three days, lying prostrate on the floor and groaning. I thought something awful must have happened to them. I was afraid to go in and I didn’t know what to do. Would you please come see about them?’ “‘No, it isn’t necessary,’ Finney replied. ‘They just have a spirit of travail in...

God created man in His likeness (Genesis 1:26, 27). He wanted fellowship with His creation, but man chose darkness rather than light. God’s intention was for man to be one with Him, but sin (rebellion from God) separated us from God who is the source of life. This fall made this world a breeding ground of sicknesses, diseases, pain, turmoil, depression, hatred, poverty, hopelessness and death. Man believed a lie originated from Satan (Read Genesis 3:1-6), and suffered the consequences of it. ‘Therefore, as sin came into the world through one man, and death as the result of sin, so death spread to all men, [no one being able to stop it or to escape its power] because all men sinned’ Romans 5:12. Satan is the real originator of sin, sickness and death. Physical death and all that produces it are the direct results of sin.The good news is that Jesus Christ came to this world to free humanity. ‘The reason the Son of God was made manifest (visible) was to undo (destroy, loosen, and dissolve) the works the devil [has done]’ 1 John 3:8b. ‘For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him’ 2 Corinthians 5:21. ‘Surely He [Christ] has borne our griefs [kholee, sicknesses], and carried our sorrows [makob, pains]; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed’ Isaiah 53:4. The word “borne” comes from the Hebrew word (nasa), meaning to bear in the sense of “suffering punishment for something”. Christ bore our sicknesses in the very same way He bore our sins. Young’s Literal Translation even reads, ‘Surely our sicknesses he hath borne, And our pains — he hath carried them, And we have esteemed him plagued, smitten of God, and afflicted’ (Isaiah 53:4). ‘When evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: “He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses.” Matthew 8:16-17 ‘In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins’ 1 John 4:9-10. ‘who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed’ 1 Peter 2:24 . Christ took the infirmities and sicknesses of the very same people for whose sins He died. ‘Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”) Galatians 3:13. The answer for humanity’s freedom is already provided. The battle for our freedom has been fought and won. The sacrifice has been offered. The penalty for humanity’s rebellion has been suffered for. The price has...